Joker Deck
by MikariStar
Summary: From unfortunate coincidences to foolproof plans that inevitably backfire, Machi's luck is better than she would ever admit; but the luckiest is most likely Hisoka. A collection of HisokaxMachi stories.
1. Chapter 1

From unfortunate coincidences to foolproof plans that inevitably backfire, Machi's luck is better than she would ever admit; but the luckiest is most likely Hisoka. A collection of HisokaxMachi stories.

Joker Deck

Card 01: A Little Kindness

"A little kindness can go a long way," Hisoka didn't remember who was it that said that, maybe it was Gon, or maybe it was someone else. Hisoka didn't know and quite frankly, he didn't care. All that he knew was that the waitress who had brought him his food a few minutes ago had spoken that quote when a man from a near by table declared from that start that she should not expect a tip, even if she had not asked for one and was simply giving him a menu as her job dictated.

Honestly, Hisoka didn't care, it was none of his business, but the greedy man's ranting about the restaurant's prices was interrupting his meal. Or maybe what really bothered Hisoka were his comments about the bad company which obviously referred to him. Either way it didn't matter, such filth was not worth killing, especially in the middle of a meal.

However, Hisoka felt the need to carry out some kind of revenge, a little something to ruin that guy's day. Then a bit later, when the bill was brought, Hisoka got an idea. He left a ridiculously large tip because he knew that it would annoy the greedy man to no end seeing that the bad company he spoke of was rich enough to throw away money on such things.

After Hisoka left the restaurant with a sense of satisfaction, seeing the greedy man's veins become apparent on his forehead when the waitress started to literally jump with joy after receiving the tip, Hisoka did not think about the event again. It was unimportant, insignificant, and thus Hisoka forgot about it ever happening.

xoxox xox xoxox

"Machi-san! Wait up Machi-san!"

Machi didn't know why she put up with that girl, but for some mysterious reason she did. "Slowpoke."

"I know, I'm not as fast as Machi-san."

Machi sighed and shook her head, "I told you to stop calling me that, I'm not much older than you."

"Actually, I believe I might be a couple of months older but that's not the point. Machi-san is my sempai in skills and strength."

"Everyone is your sempai in skills and strength!"

"Machi-san has a good sense of humor too!" The girl laughed as if Machi was really joking.

Machi simply shook her head and continued walking down the rural soil road with the odd wannabe-hunter following her. The girl had showed up out of seemingly nowhere asking for 'the great Machi-san' after apparently having tracked her down by asking the customers of the cafe used worked at, and following several trails of clues.

The girl paid good money to be trained and the agreement was that the customer would choose the location of her training. However, before they could reach their destination, the sun reached the center of the skies and hunger arrived at their stomachs. "Over there!" The girl dashed towards a red haired man sitting under the shade of a tree.

"Hisoka?" Machi soon followed, disregarding his presence as a mere coincidence. She sat several feet away with her customer and started eating lunch, while Hisoka watching her closely, but remained unusually silent. Between eating lunch and avoiding Hisoka's insistent stare, Machi didn't notice her student slip away.

The girl was now leaning over Hisoka who continued to stare at Machi with no reaction to the proximity of Machi's client. "Don't give up so easily, I'll give you a sign as thanks." Needless to say, her whispered words confused Hisoka. Then the girl stood upright and loudly declared, "the great Machi-san is training me! Then I can become just like her!"

"Good for you," Hisoka muttered and continued looking at Machi who kept shifting continuously as if she could not sit still. But she refused to go sit somewhere else, Hisoka would not make her move by simply staring, Machi refused to give him that satisfaction.

"Then I can steal Hisoka-chan away," cue playful giggles from the ex-waitress and choking noises from Machi.

Machi forced the piece of sandwich down her throat with water and got up from her spot. "This guy?" Sure the girl had mentioned that she wished to become a strong woman like Machi to capture a man's heart, but she never mentioned who he was.

Hisoka began to look back and forth between the two women, taking new interest in the situation, given Machi's reaction. "I have an admirer?"

"It would be a rip off if I agreed to accept the payment for this. He's not worth wasting your money on and I honestly don't think you could handle the training anyway," Machi tried to explain, remaining cool, calm and collected, on the outside at least. Inside she was taken by surprise, still confident, but surprised none the less.

"I would think you'd just take her money and let her worry about how she spends it," Hisoka pointed out.

"This is none of your business," Machi retorted.

"I guess you're right, I'll take Machi-san's advice and will no longer waste my time trying to steal Hisoka. I guess that means the contract is cancelled, sorry Machi."

"Never mind," Machi should have been angry that she just lost good money, but somehow she didn't really care about the cancelled contract or being dragged out to the middle of nowhere without getting anything in exchange in the end. Her mind was elsewhere, but not even Machi herself could precise exactly where.

"I guess I'll be going now, bye!" The odd girl dashed away, only looking back once before disappearing in the distance. A little kindness can go a log way, and so can gossip. Thus it was a rumor about Hisoka's crush that determined the method that would be used to repay him, by bringing Machi to him, the rest was a bonus.

"Was that jealousy?" Hisoka finally broke the silence when the odd girl was out of sight.

"Of course not, I just felt sorry for her," it was a lie and a rather obvious one on Machi's part.

"Why would you care?" Hisoka refused to drop the subject, not that it was surprising.

Machi took a deep breath and blurted out the first thing that came into her head, a well known saying, "a little kindness can go a long way." It was silly but she felt she had to say something, anything, because leaving that annoying question unanswered would just make it more annoying.

End of Card 01

Disclaimer, I don't own Hunter x Hunter. This is my first Hunter x Hunter story, though I have written many other fanfics for various anime series and video games. I'm currently revising all my fanfics to make sure they don't have any mistakes, if something slipped by, please let me know. Comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated, or you could just review to let me know you read, that's good too.

xoxox xox xoxox

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	2. Chapter 2

Joker Deck

Card 02: Allergic

It was an old research file from the Spiders, abandoned and forgotten under a pile of random things. Machi found it by mere chance, a random coincidence. The yellow folder held several papers with information about battles and accomplishments all dealing with the same subject, the man's whose picture was attached to the first page of the report with a silver paperclip.

Machi took a moment to study the picture, he had green hair, and she soon decided that Hisoka looked far better with red hair. Of course, just as quickly as the thought came she dismissed it, pushing it out of her mind and out of existence. She didn't care if Hisoka looked good or not, though the truth was that he did, and there was no reason for her to form, let alone express, a preference for what hair color he should have. After all, that was none of her business.

However, Machi continued to look over the file fueled by curiosity. She didn't read every word, merely skimming through the small black font for anything that may stand out, then she found it. It was a simple enough piece of information which revealed that Hisoka was allergic to a certain type of rare berry. Machi didn't know how that information ended up in that file, which ended up in her possession along with some other boxes during the times when the Spiders were highly active, but she did know that it would be hard to resist the temptation to use her newly gained knowledge.

The Spiders were now inactive, their usual hideouts deserted, thus Machi had decided that it was about time to clean her apartment with the lack of things to do. She didn't even remember why she had taken those boxes to her home, possibly for safe keeping when moving from one hideout to another, but the boxes were not of high importance and were soon forgotten.

Machi placed the file aside and continued digging though the boxes finding an assortment of weapons, but nothing too rare. Her mission for that night was accomplished with a side of plotting, and her apartment was left sparkling clean. Tomorrow she would execute her revenge.

xoxox xox xoxox

There he was, sitting in her living room, listing all the reasons why she should agree to go out with him. Machi had it with Hisoka showing up every day at her door to ask her out. She was fed up with how he always invited himself in, but she didn't think too much about the fact that most of the time it took her several hours to kick him out, not because she couldn't, but simply because she didn't try. Of course she didn't notice that detail, such is the way of denial.

Machi smiled in satisfaction when Hisoka suddenly fell silent when she placed the refreshments on the coffee table in front of him. Because she had convinced herself that she did not want Hisoka to be there, she had never offered her apparently unwelcome guest any food before. "I made this cake myself," and it had turned out better than anything else she had ever cooked before, despite not being anywhere near calling herself a baking expert, and having to rush the procedure after obtaining all the needed ingredients in the morning to have it ready in the afternoon when Hisoka usually came by.

"For me?" Hisoka grinned, "I knew you liked me."

At this point Machi bit her tongue so as to not delay her vengeance by getting into an argument with Hisoka that would keep him busy babbling his usual incoherencies and prevent him from eating the cake. He always accused her of denial and she could never convince him he was the one in denial about her oh so obvious lack of feelings for him.

Hisoka took a bite of the cake; it was chocolate with some kind of fruit pieces in it. "Mmm..." He took a bigger bite, stuffing his face and adding with his mouth full, "delicious!"

Now Machi felt just a little bit guilty, but it wasn't like she was feeding him deadly poison. Though the report didn't say what the berries would do to Hisoka, it was only logical to think that his allergy was nothing deadly. Maybe his entire body would swell, or turn odd shades of red and purple, or perhaps he would simply sneeze non-stop, then start feeling lightheaded and sleep for a few days. Machi hoped for that last one, but in the back of her mind, she wondered if she had acted recklessly in her apparent frustration towards her failed attempts to get rid of Hisoka, because she would never admit she enjoyed his little visits. Cautiously hiding any hints of guilt, Machi asked, "how do you feel?"

"Great!" A moment passed in silence and Machi debated how she should feel about his answer; glad that Hisoka was alright, or disappointed that she couldn't teach him a lesson. He got up and walked a few steps, rounding the coffee table and stopping in front of Machi who bolted from her seat on instinct as if she thought Hisoka was about to collapse and would fall of she didn't catch him. Instead he hugged her, which took her by surprise.

"Let go," Machi tried to part from him but found that somehow she couldn't. "Hisoka, I mean it!"

"I just wanted to give you a thank you hug for the cake, but I already let you go." Hisoka spoke as innocently as he could, but it was obvious to Machi that he was hiding something.

"What is this? Nen?" Bungee Gum, it was all over him and all over her, binding them together.

"I'm not doing anything; last time I lost control of my Nen like this was because I ate some berries I'm allergic to. But I haven't had any more of those since that time..." He knew, all along Hisoka knew.

The realization hit Machi like a ton of bricks. Of all the rotten luck she thought she was having the worse that day. "Idiot! You ate the cake even if you knew about the berries?"

"The taste of gummy berries is hard to hide even with all that chocolate, but it was delicious," Hisoka grinned, he had won this round. Machi was stuck with him and there was nothing either of them could do about it.

Any feelings of guilt Machi had were replaced with rage, "idiot!" and she stomped on Hisoka's foot in anger. Then just as quickly as the outburst came it went away and Machi returned to being her cool, calm and collected self. She made a mistake, so what? Her plan backfired, so what? She had the worse luck, so what? None of it mattered; she would get over it and move on with her life, and for the moment being she would endure being literally stuck with Hisoka. Machi's luck was the worse, but only because she refused to admit how good it really was.

End of Card 02

Disclaimer, I don't own Hunter x Hunter or Gummy Bears, which is where the gummy berries are from, it was just a random reference. I'm not even sure why I like Hisoka x Machi; I can't point out a specific reason except that they're fun. Hisoka became my favorite Hunter x Hunter character at first having caught my attention simply because he reminded me of Axel from Kingdom Hearts; he later earned his spot on my favorites list on his own right. Usually I'm protective of my favorites like a true fan girl and rarely pair them up, and when I do, I'm picky. I think that maybe what made me approve of Machi was her cool, calm and collected attitude, the fact that she doesn't throw herself at the bishounen (aka Hisoka) and how well those two could contrast and interact. 


End file.
